Herne Bay receive £5,000 grant to develop their community aspirations

LOCAL people in Herne Bay will be putting on their boots following a £5,000 Grow the Game grant from the Football Foundation, the country’s largest sports charity.

Manager Simon Halsey guided the Winch’s Field club to the Kent League title last season and they were agonisingly close to appearing at Wembley Stadium in the FA Vase Final for the first time but they were defeated by Northern League side West Auckland Town in the semi-finals.

They will be playing in the Ryman League for the very first time in the club’s 125 year history next season after winning the Kent League title by ten points last time out.

Anthony Deer’s reserve side also clinched the League title and League Cup last season in what was an exceptional season for the Kent club.

The grant will allow Herne Bay Football Club CIC to start a Ladies football team next month and to create a disabled men’s team during the first half of 2013.

The grant will also allow the club to obtain and train a number of new coaches to assist in the development of these teams.

The core objective of the Football Foundation’s Grow the Game’s programme is to increase participation and enable more people to play our national game through supporting the development of grassroots clubs.

The programme is delivered in partnership with all of the 46 County Football Associations and funded by The Football Association and Government.

So far Grow the Game has awarded 894 separate grants worth £4,354,926 to grassroots football clubs.  Analysis of the monitoring and evaluation so far predicts that this will result in the creation of 3,716 brand new football teams competing in FA affiliated leagues, 70,489 new players participating each week and 14,111 new qualifications or courses being completed.

The key strength of Grow the Game is that its participation increases are sustainable rather than transient.  Its grants create a solid infrastructure of teams and newly trained coaches in which new people can start playing the sport, rather than simply providing temporary activity sessions, which are then vulnerable to drops in participation once the programme ends.

The Football Foundation is the country’s largest sports charity, launched in 2000 and funded by the Premier League, The Football Association and the Government (via Sport England).

Since then it has awarded around 8,000 grants worth more than £420m towards improving grassroots sport, which it has used to attract additional partnership funding of over £520m.

Ronald Boddy, the club’s commercial manager, said:  “We are extremely pleased to receive this grant from the Football Foundation.  It has provided us with the financial support to go ahead with our plans to develop the community aspirations of the club.”

Paul Thorogood, the chief executive of the Football Foundation, added: “I congratulate Herne Bay Football Club CIC for receiving this Grow the Game grant, which will increase sport participation and support football development in the region.

“I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Kent Football Association for their help in making this happen.

“The new teams and players generated by the Grow the Game scheme, since its launch three years’ ago will go a long way towards helping The FA to achieve its growth target of 150,000 new participants by 2013.

“It is also helping government and Sport England get more people engaging in regular sport.

“The Football Foundation is committed – with funding provided by the Premier League, The FA and Government – to improve grassroots community sporting provision and help make this legacy vision a reality.”

Meanwhile, Halsey’s squad building ahead of their new adventure in the Ryman League has continued, as central midfielder Ben Brown, exciting winger Dan Lawrence and twins James and Michael Turner have all re-signed for the club.

Halsey told www.hernebayfc.net: “This is great news for the club.  All four have done exceptionally well for the club last season and I am very pleased they will all be a big part of our Ryman League plans.”

Halsey added: “I am very busy at the moment talking to a lot of players old and new to ensure we have the right squad of players for our new league campaign.”

The club have confirmed that pre-season training for the first team, reserves and under 18’s will start on Saturday 30 June at Winch’s Field, Stanley Gardens at 09:30.

For more information about the work the Football Foundation is doing all over the country visit www.footballfoundation.org.uk.  

Visit Herne Bay’s website: www.hernebayfc.net